Director James Mangold had a chance to talk about his upcoming film THE WOLVERINE. It perhaps packs the most information we’ve gotten yet. Read on:
“The wonderful opportunity for me with this film is that 90 percent of it takes place in Japan…and even though other elements remain constant from the other pictures, namely Hugh Jackman, we kind of got our chance to reboot the tone and go a little darker and a little deeper than they’ve gone before with this character. That was exciting for me.”
More on Japan:
“There is a significant amount of Japanese spoken in the movie, and the cast is almost entirely Japanese. So there is this wonderful sense of cross-pollination between a very Western character and a far Eastern culture, and I think it’s very cool and something we haven’t seen so far.” It also lets Mangold add a few elements from traditional Eastern films, like storytelling, levels of mystery, fighting, combat techniques and shooting style. “I think there is a lot of ways that Japanese film, Japanese fighting, Japanese martial arts have had an effect on this movie,” he said. “And certainly the movie is dripping with Japanese tradition both cinematically, fighting-wise and philosophically as well.”
Wolverine’s berserker rage:
“The whole point is not about violence or rating; it’s about intensity. I wanted to make a film that in a way captures the intensity of his character. One of the things that has always been a feature of Wolverine in the comics is that he has a berserker rage, that he has anger and some of his abilities are driven by something more primal.”
How to get him there?
“Honestly, to get really pissed off — not cute pissed off, not quippy pissed off, not funny pissed off or cigar-chomping pissed off, just pissed off — that can then help drive the fighting, drive the combat. That is interesting for me and then for the character, some of the jet fuel underneath some of the combat in the film.”
Mangold’s vision will be revealed on July 26th, with Hugh Jackman, Brian Tee, and Will Yun Lee onscreen.
In other X-MEN news, everyone and their mother is expected to be involved with X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST, except, perhaps, January Jones. She played Emma Frost in X-MEN: FIRST CLASS. Here’s what she had to say:
“I don’t know that I’m in it, I don’t think Emma’s in this one. Well they haven’t told me if I am (laughs). I wouldn’t put it past them though, I got the script for the first one on the airplane on the way there. It’s called Days of Future Past I think, and I think it’s more about James [McAvoy] and Michael [Fassbender] and then Patrick [Stewart] and Ian [McKellan], and I think it’s gonna go back and forth with those so I don’t think Emma’s in those bits. I don’t know, I really don’t know.”
The film stars James McAvoy, Patrick Stewart, Michael Fassbender, Ian McKellan, Nicholas Hoult, Jennifer Lawrence, and Hugh Jackman. Bryan Singer returns to the franchise. It comes out July 14th, 2014.
